RSSBuilding condition infuriates owner
Chet Allen, owner of the building that housed Boomers nightclub in downtown Grand Junction, says lessee Beau Bradley began remodeling the 110-year-old building but never opened the Six Nightclub he had promised last year. The interior is now in a state of disrepair.
QUICKREAD
Timeline
It has been a long, confusing year at 436 Main St. Highlights include:
May 2010 — Boomers closes after renters Mary and Carson Cross say they can’t keep the business afloat. Building owner Chet Allen says he plans to reopen the bar a month or two later.
June 2010 — Allen leases the building to Beau Bradley, who intends to open Six Nightclub & Lounge in the building. Allen scraps plans to reopen Boomers.
November 2010 — After originally projecting a fall 2010 open date, Bradley tells The Daily Sentinel he will not open Six until at least January 2011.
April 2011 — A letter appears on Six’s website announcing the club will not open.
Clientele who frequented Boomers at 436 Main St. wouldn’t recognize it today.
The bar that stretched along the back wall is gone.
The bathrooms have been ripped out, leaving a row of exposed pipes as the only evidence they existed.
The stage has been converted into an unfinished seating area, and the skeleton of what was intended to be a social lounge near the bar’s front full-length windows is so rustic that a sign hangs above it labeling the area “The Sawdust Lounge.”
One of the most startling changes is the open dirt patch with pipes snaking through what had been the seating area on the east side of the building. The area was opened so sprinkler work could be done below what would have been a stage. The row of exposed beams above that area, where the ceiling once was, is equally alarming to former patrons.
None of this was supposed to happen, according to building owner Chet Allen, who said he feels “victimized” by Beau Bradley, who has leased the building from Allen since June. Allen said Bradley left the building in this condition earlier this year.
“This guy in my opinion is worse than Bernie Madoff because this is part of my retirement,” Allen said. “I’m having to rebuild something I may not live to see that I once had.”
Allen owned Boomers until 2008, when he sold it to Mary and Carson Cross. The Crosses said they couldn’t keep the business afloat and returned it to Allen in 2010. The bar closed in May last year, and Allen said he intended to open it a month or two later.
Before that could happen, Allen was approached by Bradley, a mortgage banker at Major Mortgage in Grand Junction. Bradley said he wanted to rent the building and open Six Nightclub there, an upscale bar with fancy drinks and a disc jockey. Allen accepted and signed a lease with Bradley that allowed Bradley to move into the building in June.
“I was getting older. The bar business is a young man’s game,” Allen said of why he dropped plans to reopen Boomers.
In September, Allen, 61, saw more construction inside the building than he found suitable, but he said he let it continue in hopes Bradley would finish the work and get his nightclub going. Allen said he was OK with some cosmetic changes to the building, but he didn’t expect Bradley to try to take out part of the ceiling so the club could have a two-story berth above the proposed stage on the eastern wall.
“This building was built in 1897. It can’t support two stories without having boards across all of the second story,” Allen said. “It broke my heart when I walked in and saw what he’d done.”
When asked about construction, Bradley said, “When you’re dealing with a 110-year-old building, things arise you can’t foresee.”
He said he didn’t want to comment any further than that on the remodeling.
Bradley declined to say when he last paid rent to Allen. Allen puts that mark at February and said Bradley has not had anyone in the building to work on remodeling since November. Bradley said he was last in the building a week ago and that construction is ongoing at the building.
Allen responded to that comment by saying he (Allen) is paying for a sprinkler pipe project at the building, but Bradley is not helping pay for that activity.
After Bradley announced in early April he would not open Six, he and Allen spent the month trying to figure out how to divvy up costs to improve the building and give Six another chance, but Allen said Friday that negotiations fell through and he is no longer interested in working with Bradley.
Allen’s attorney estimated it will take $350,000 to $400,000 to make the building suitable to use again.
Allen said he has had trouble getting bank financing, so he’s not sure when he’ll be able to pay for each repair. But he plans to pay to put the building back together himself and reopen as Boomers or possibly rent it to another outfit for bar, restaurant or retail use as soon as possible.
“We’re not going to waste any more time,” Allen said. “The party’s over.”
Bradley said he still hopes to move back into the building and continue work on Six, but he would seek another place to locate his club if Allen is not interested.
“The ball is in their court,” Bradley said.
Bradley said he plans to help with remodeling costs if a negotiation can be reached with Allen. Some new and existing investors are willing to help get Six off the ground, Bradley said.
He also said he has paid every worker associated with the remodeling project so far, but added, “There’s some negotiations going on there as well.”
An architect and an engineering consultant who worked for Bradley and Bradley’s real estate attorney did not return calls for comment for this article.
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